How Much You Need to Improve to Maintain Your Percentile Rank

When students receive their PSAT and SAT scores, they often want to put those scores into context. One way to look at the context of your scores is through percentiles.

College Board provides two types of percentile ranks: National Representative Sample and User. The User Percentile presents a more accurate picture of how a student compares to other college-bound students—it also requires a bit of digging to find. The User Percentile appears on students’ online reports.

Percentiles reflect the percentage of students at or below each score. In order to maintain a percentile rank achieved on the sophomore PSAT, a student must increase subsequent scores.

For instance, 1140 on the PSAT in 10th grade would place a student in the 86th percentile, but to maintain that position, the student would need to achieve 1240 on the junior PSAT and 1290 on the SAT—an increase of 150 points.

The 86th percentile means that 14% of students performed better than the student. If this student wanted to cut that percentage in half, ultimately ranking in the 93rd percentile, she would need to achieve 1380 on the SAT—a 240-point increase from the 10th grade PSAT.

The following table is designed to allow you to track user percentiles and scores from sophomore PSAT to the SAT.

About
Ash Kramer

With a career in test prep and higher education that began in the late 90s, Ash has held a variety of educational roles from tutor to administrator. She is currently a PhD candidate at USC and the Director of Curriculum at Compass, where she is lucky to lead a brilliant team creating the very best learning materials for students and their tutors.